News
See below for the latest news from the Warwick Crop Centre.
For our latest publications see Crop Centre in Print
Warwick secure Defra contract to store 14,000 crop seed samples
Warwick Crop Centre at the University of Warwick has won a five year contract from Defra to continue to host the UK Vegetable Genebank at the University’s Wellesbourne Campus.
The Genebank is an internationally significant collection of almost 14,000 seed samples from different vegetable crops including carrot onion, lettuce cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli and closely related wild species.
The collection represents the genetic diversity in the genepool of each crop, and is a vital resource for researchers and plant breeders across the world.
“Vegetables are an important component of a healthy diet and the seed resources within the Genebank will support the development of new and improved varieties in the future”, said Dr Charlotte Allender who leads the Vegetable Genebank project.
Food and the City - new on-line course
Warwick Crop Centre staff Rob Lillywhite and Carla Sarrouy have contributed to the development of a new on-line course 'Food and the City'. The course has been developed through a collaboration of individual experts from universities based in the West Midlands region of England - in particular, Coventry University, Harper Adams University, University College Birmingham and the University of Warwick – working together as part of the Food Smart City Project funded by Universities West Midlands and the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
Plants evolve ways to control embryo growth and development
An international study, headed by Dr Jose Gutierrez-Marcos from the School of Life Sciences and published in the journal Science, provides the first evidence that plants have evolved ways to control embryo growth and development by emitting information from surrounding cells. A breakthrough that could lead to the creation of a new generation of high yield plants.
19th Crucifer Genetics Workshop and Brassica 2014, Wuhan, China
Representatives (staff and PhD students) from the School of Life Sciences, including Warwick Crop Centre, attended and presented at the 19th Crucifer Genetics Workshop and Brassica 2014 in Whan, China last week. The meeting provided a platform to exchange research and production information, and to explore the opportunities for cooperations in studies on Brassicaceae genetics and genomics, and their applications in genetic improvement of crop species.